Lincoln Centenai^y Services 
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Temple Adath Ismel 

Louisville^ Kentucky 



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CONTENTS 

LINCOLN. THE PATRIOT— Rabbi H. G. Endow, D. D 3-11 

Sermon preached Sunday Morning, February 7, 1909 

PROGRAM OF THE LINCOLN CENTENARY SERVICE .... 12 

THE MEMORY OF LINCOLN— Rabbi H. G. Endow, D. D. . . . 13-14 
A SOUTHERN SOLDIER'S VIEW OF LINCOLN— Judge WO. Harris, 15-17 
A NORTHERN SOLDIER'S REMINISCENCE OF LINCOLN— 

CoL Andrew Cowan 18-24 

LINCOLN, A POEM— Mr. Madison Cawcin 25-26 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY— 

Professor Albion W. SmaU, Ph. D 27-38 



a. 



'^^^^'-fiLo ' 



Lincoln, the Patriot 

RabM H. G. Enelow, D.D. 

So much has been said and written about Abraham 
Lincoln that it is hardly possible to add anything new. 
There are not only numerous formal lives of the great 
President, but also a multitude of subjective studies and 
appreciations. It is doubtful whether even the approach- 
ing centenary will bring forth much new material. There 
may be some hitherto unknown letter or fragment, some 
hitherto unpublished portrait — and every such little treas- 
ure, we may be sure, will be wrested from obscurity by 
lovers of Lincoln. Very little, however, can possibly be 
added to our store of information about the stirring period 
of which Lincoln was the central figure and towering hero. 

What the Lincoln Centenary, on the other hand, is cer- 
tain to do, is this: it will emphasize the ethical element 
of Lincoln's life. It will turn the mind of mankind once 
again to his wondrous personality. It will fasten the at- 
tention of the Nation anew upon the qualities of his unique 
character and the high motives behind it. And must we 
not believe that, when all is said and done, it is just this 
that forms the chief legacy of any great man to his fellow- 
men? The achievements of the leaders of humanity would 
be of little worth and of short duration if behind them 
there were not some moral force, if they were not imbued 
with some perennial ethical value. The actual deeds of 
the world's great men may prove of little interest to dis- 
tant posterity — they may be superseded, they may dwindle 
in proportion, they may become the unconscious part of 
ordinary life, or they may be forgotten altogether. But 
the moral power behind the deeds, the devotion and ideal- 
ism that quickened the personality, the divine fire that 
burnt in the soul of the leader, remains unforgetable and 



precious to llic cikI of liiiic. Tliat is tlic substance that 
must enter into the noble acts and aims of all ay;es, thonj^h 
from ap;e to aji;e this substance may change in outward 
appearance and application. 

All this, of course, cannot be said literally of Lincoln. 
ITis (le«'ds are not f()rfj;otten. ITis figure is not remote from 
those living today. The events of his life are still fresh 
in our minds. On all hands do we meet with people who 
took part in them. Even the details of his career captivate 
our attention. The things he achieved are of supreme mo- 
ment to eveiy citizen. None the less, I do not hesitate to 
say that the chief inspiration the world is destined to de- 
rive from the life of Lincoln will emanate from the con- 
templation of his personality, rather than from any one 
thing he attained — from the marvel of his character, from 
that rare combination of qualities which singled him out 
as one of the greatest men in the annals of the world. 

What was the secret of Lincoln's personality? Many 
attempts have been made to explain it; to analyze its ele- 
ments and antecedents — to trace it back to race and envi- 
ronment. After all, all such efforts must be in vain. Lin- 
coln is Lincoln. Neither genealogy nor geograiihy can 
quite account for him. You can no more solve his mystery 
than that of any other unique personality in history. 
There may be much virtue in the modern critical theory 
which looks in antecedents and surroundings — in the 
milieu — for light on the character and the ambitions and 
achievements of great men. Nevertheless, there is a resi- 
due at the heart of every great man that bailies analysis — 
a secret that the key of origin and surroundings cannot 
unlock. Can you explain the secret of Moses — who was 
inspired to flee the luxuries and lolling of a royal palace 
and cast his lot with his slave-brothers, thus to become 
his people's deliverer and the world's greatest prophet? 
Can you explain the secret of Amos — impelled to leave his 
sheep and sycamores at Tekoa and journey to the joyous 
capital of Samaria and there proclaim the word of Cod 

4 



I 



and the doom of the people? Can you explain the mystery 
that has resided in the soul of every one of the world's 
undying prophets, heroes, and leaders? No more will it 
ever be really possible to account for the lone loftiness of 
Lincoln. Suffice it to say that in him the American people 
have had a man who has stirred up the reverence, the af- 
fection, the wonder of all alike. Rulers have been aston- 
ished at his sagacity and power; scholars have marveled at 
his intellect; orators have paid tribute to his eloquence, 
and he possesses the love of all the people. And if any- 
thing was needful to give supreme and final consecration 
to his name in the memory of mankind, there was the 
tragedy of his martyr-death. 

If the praise of poets be the measure of fame, Lincoln 
is secure. I doubt whether Washington, even, has formed 
the theme of as many of our poets as Lincoln. Muses the 
most diverse have been inspired by his memory: Walt 
Whitman, William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, 
Edward Rowland Sill, Edwin Markham. Indeed, not a 
poet of note but has sought to express in melody the mar- 
vel and the mystery of Abraham Lincoln. "New birth of 
our new soil, the first American" — is the way Lowell de- 
scribed him in his Commemoration Ode. And Mr. Edwin 
Markham has more recently sought to portray the secret 
of Lincoln in the following words : 

"When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greateniug and darkening as it hurried on, 
She bent the strenuous heavens and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth — 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
It was a stuff to wear for centuries, 
A man that matched the mountains, and compelled 
The stars to look our way and honor us." 

Thus tlie poets! Walt Whitman's noble dirge on the 
death of Lincoln, "O Captain, My Captain," — as noble a 

5 



poem ;is anc possess — is known to nil. "New l)irth of our 
new soil, the tirst American I" Tried clay of the common 
road, dashed through with a strain of prophecy! What 
do all these tributes mean? The common realization that 
in Lincoln was found the culmination and the summary of 
Americanism, that in him lived the soul of our democracy, 
that the spirit and the essence and the hope of the New 
World were fused together in his personality in all their 
elemental strength and everlasting significance. He was a 
child of the soil, he loved the soil, he kept in touch with 
the soil, deriving strength from it, like the giant in the 
ancient Greek myth, and his life was dedicated to the per- 
petuation of those ideals which from the beginning of our 
Republic have hallowed this American soil, and without 
which it would be deflowered of all its honor and glory. 

This leads us to what formed the chief quality — the 
ruling passion — of Lincoln. It may sound trite, but su- 
premely important it is none the less. His ruling passion 
was patriotism. I have said that a great deal has been 
said and Avritten about Lincoln in formal biographies and 
in subjective studies. A perusal of some of these works 
brings one face to face with most diverse, sometimes 
antipodal, appraisals of his motives, his acts, his charac- 
ter. The best approach to Lincoln, however, is by way of 
his own writings. Read his letters, his speeches, his mes- 
sages. They contain the portrait of a lofty, resolute, tender 
soul. They are a liberal education in Americanism. There 
is in them candor, lucidity, eloquence. But the one point 
of convergence for all that he wrote is his patriotism. This 
is his master passion. This is the strain that runs through 
all his utterances, from the time he served in the General 
Assembly of Illinois, to those solemn moments made sub- 
lime and immortal by his Gettysburg speech and his Inau- 
gural Addresses. Patriotism pulsed through his veins, 
quivered in his bosom, was inscribed in his countenance. 

Patriotism, you say? What more common than this? 
Who is not ])atriotic? His, however, was the patriotism 

6 



that means more than a mere sentimental attachment to 
one's native land, or even the readiness to die for it. His 
patriotism was, first of all, a profound love of American 
institutions. It was a solemn consciousness of the high 
ideals of freedom and justice and brotherhood that brought 
this Republic into being, a passionate loyalty to all its 
institutions, because of their import to the cause of free- 
dom and justice, a conviction that the hopes and the hap- 
piness of all mankind are bound up with the triumph of 
these institutions, a dread of anything that might impair 
even a tittle or iota of their glory, and a soul-deep deter- 
mination to do all in his power to protect, defend, and pre- 
serve them. The American Republic and human happi- 
ness and progress were synonyms to his mind and heart; 
they were ideas indissolubly intertwined. In this sense he 
was a patriot, and this sort of patriotism inspired every- 
thing he said and did throughout his marvelous and 
troublous career. 

There is a passage in one of his earliest recorded 
speeches that throws light on this aspect of Lincoln's pa- 
triotism. It shows how much reverence and love for 
American institutions from the first formed the chief in- 
gredient of his make-up. In an address delivered January 
27, 1837, before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, 
Illinois, on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institu- 
tions," he uttered the following words: "We find our- 
selves under the government of a system of political insti- 
tutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and 
religious liberty than any of which the history of former 
times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, 
found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental 
blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establish- 
ment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once 
hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and de- 
parted race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly 
they performed it) to possess themselves, and through 
themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its 



hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal 
rjfjlits; and it is ours only to transmit these to the latest 
generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This 
task, gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty 
to posterity, and love for our species in general, all im- 
peratively require us faithfully to perform." 

On another occasion, in the course of a speech in the 
Illinois House of Representatives, in the year 1830, he 
says: "Many free countries have lost their liberty, and 
ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest 
plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never 
deserted her *****. if ever I feel the soul within me 
elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly un- 
worthy of its Almight}' Architect, it is when I contemplate 
the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, 
and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance 
at her victorious oppressors." 

Again, on July IG, 1852, Lincoln delivered a eulogy of 
Henry Clay, at the State House, in Springfield. What he 
said in praise of Clay was an indication to a large extent 
of his own character. For, is not the study of the great 
men of the past very often a quest and token of spiritual 
affinity? One passage in Lincoln's address is particularly 
interesting in this connection. "Mr. Clay's predominant 
sentiment," he said, "from first to last, was a deep devo- 
tion to the cause of human liberty — a strong sympathy 
with the oppressed everywhere, and an ardent wish for 
thoir elevation. With him this was a primary and all-con- 
trolling passion. Subsidiary to this was the conduct of 
his whole life. He loved his country partly because it was 
his own country, and mostly because it was a free country; 
and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity, 
and glor^', because he saw in such the advancement, pros- 
perity, and glory of Iminaii right, luiinan liberty, and 
human nature. He desired the prosperity of his country- 
men, i)artly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly 
to show to the world that free men could be prosperous." 

8 



Such was the basic character of Lincoln's patriotism. 
To understand it fully is to understand his attitude to the 
critical questions of his age — an attitude which at that 
time was largely misunderstood and misinterpreted. And 
who will say that in this day and generation there is no 
need for a new emphasis on Lincoln's idea of patriotism? 
With the growth of our material prosperity, with the ex- 
pansion of our country to the isles of the sea, with the 
many changes that have taken place in the life and the 
aims of our people, with the obscuring of our ideals, with 
the tendency in some quarters to scorn the Declaration of 
Independence as an aggregate of glittering generalities, 
it is essential to bear in mind the purpose for which our 
institutions were created — ^to bring freedom, justice, and 
happiness to men — and that to serve this purpose is the 
highest form of American patriotism. 

Another phase of Lincoln's patriotism right now de- 
serves the special attention of the people of our Common- 
wealth, I refer to Lincoln's constant insistence on obe- 
dience to the law as the quintessence of patriotism. The 
supreme safeguard of our democratic institutions lies in 
the scrupulous maintenance of our laws. Violation of law 
means the subversion of all government. It means the 
destruction of civilization. Our State, in recent years, has 
suffered as seriously as any other section, if not more se- 
riously, from a reign of lawlessness. Think of the acts of 
violence that have been perpetrated in the best parts of 
our State during the tobacco troubles, to say nothing of 
the feuds and bloodshed that are the disgrace of our less 
civilized mountain regions. Do you think patriotism can 
thrive in such an atmosphere? Do you think our free in- 
stitutions can thus be preserved? Do you think American 
civilization can thus be perpetuated? And the same ques- 
tion must be put to any one who breaks, or is willing to 
allow others to break, any of the laws on the integrity of 
which rests the whole fabric of our democracy. It matters 
not whether such violation occur in our social, our politi- 

9 



cal, our commercial life. Obedience to the law is the first 
condition of patriotism. It is the first exhibition of the 
patriotic spirit. This is the way Lincoln puts it in one of 
those early speeches that so finely- foreshadow his future: 
"Let every American/' he says, "every lover of liberty, 
every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the 
Eevolution never to violate in the least particular the laws 
of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by 
others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support 
of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of 
the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his 
life, his property, and his sacred honor — let every man re- 
member that to violate the law is to trample on the blood 
of his fathers, and to tear the charter of his own and his 
children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed 
by ever\' American mother to the lispino- babe that prattles 
on her lap; let it be taugiit in schools, in seminaries, and 
in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and 
in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed 
in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, 
in short, let it become the political religion of the Nation; 
and let the old and the young, the rich and the ])oor, the 
grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and 
conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars." 

I cannot close without alluding to one other aspect of 
Lincoln's patriotism: its religious aspect; his faith in (Jod. 
Lincoln believed firmly in the presence of God in the his- 
tory of our Republic, and in the unfailing guidance of 
Providence. Without such implicit faith it is hard to think 
of Lincoln bearing up under his great burden, and per- 
during to the very end. His life reminds one of the simple 
words in (»ur children's hymnal: 

"To this their secret strength they owed 
The martyr's path who trod, 
The fountain of their patience fiowed 
From out their thouiiht of Gt)d.'' 



10 



We are all familiar with those fateful farewell words 
he addressed to his neighbors at Springfield before his de- 
parture for the National capital. What a ring of sadness 
and trust! "I now leave, not knowing when or whether 
ever I may return, with a task before me greater than 
that which rested upon Washington. Without the assist- 
ance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot 
succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail." And this 
note of faith in God, who has never forsaken this land in 
its difficulties, and who is shaping its course to the high 
ends of human freedom and happiness, this note of devout 
confidence, he strikes again and again in the course of his 
memorable journey to Washington and of the sad and 
heavy years of his leadership. 

And has he failed? If ever life was a triumph, his 
was. If ever career was a blessing to millions, his was. 
If ever death was a victory, a self-sacrifice, a transfigura- 
tion, it was Abraham Lincoln's. His tragic death sealed 
the covenant of his lofty patriotism. He lived and died 
that our country might remain the home of liberty, of jus- 
tice, of brotherhood — that, to use his own noble words, 
this Nation might have a new birth of freedom, and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people 
might not perish from the earth. 

"O martyred one, farewell! 
Thou hast not left thy people quite alone, 
Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone 
Of power, of love, of trust, a prophecy. 
Whose fair fulfilment all the Earth shall be, 
And all the Future tell." 



11 



Centenary Service 

Friday Evening, February 12. 1909 

PROGRAM 

Prelude — Andante Gnilmant 

"Holy Art Thou" Handel 

the choral club 
Invocation 

Address — "The Memory of Lincoln" Rabbi H. G. Enelow, D. D. 

"The Lord Is My Shepherd" Schubert 

women's chorus 01 the choral CLUB 

Address — "A Southern Soldier's View of I,incoln" ...Judge W. O. Harris 

"Great Is Jehovah" Schubert 

the choral club 

Address — "A Northern Soldier's Reminiscence of Lincoln" 

Col. Andrew Cowan 
"The Star Spangled Banner" 

THE congregation 

"Lincoln : a Poem" Mr. Madison Cawein 

'Traise the Lord" Ratidegger 

THE choral club 

Address — "Abraliam Lincoln, the Prophet of Democracy" 

Professor Albion W. Small, Ph. D. 

"America" 

the congregation 

Benediction 

PosTLUDE — Allegro Eddy 

12 




TEMPLE ADATH ISRAEL 

LOUISVILLE 



Tke Memory of Lincoln 

Rahhi H. G. Enelow, D.D. 

We are assembled to pay tribute to the memory of one 
of the greatest men of history, the most wonderful son of 
our Republic, the most illustrious child of Kentucky — 
Abraham Lincoln. Upon the death of Lincoln, a poet 
wrote the following lines: 

"And always in his land of birth and death. 
Be his fond name — warm'd in the people's hearts — 
Abraham Lincoln, the Dear President!'' 

This prayer is certainly coming true. From State to 
State, from town to town, from village to village there 
stretches today the garland of homage woven in his honor. 
Everywhere pseans of praise are sung — testimony to the 
universal love for the memory of Lincoln. The Dear Pres- 
ident — that he is, indeed! With the passage of years, as 
his work has grown clearer, as his figure stands out more 
distinct against the background of his age, as his aims and 
ideals have received appreciation more intelligent and 
just, he has become ever dearer to the soul of the American 
people. 

Today North and South, with one accord, seek words to 
express for his memory both reverence and affection, and 
the whole world's eyes are fixed upon the humble spot of 
his nativity. And who has more cause for rejoicing and 
pride than Kentucky? In Kentucky Abraham Lincoln 
was born, his wife was a Kentucky woman, his dearest 
friend was a Kentuckian and for Kentucky in particular 
he again and again displayed that love and kindness 
which he never ceased to feel for the whole South. 

"The opinions of men are organic," says Emerson. The 
reason why we are drawn to Lincoln, why we spontaneous- 

13 



ly give to his life and character our full measure of praise, 
is that his name embraces all that is best in us, in human- 
ity, and especially in American democracy. In his own 
life — so humbly begun, so bravely and nobly carried on, 
and so tragically ended — he incarnated the higliest and 
most heroic qualities of human nature, battled for the de- 
fense of our most precious and most inspiring principles, 
devoted all his soul and body and might to the purest and 
loftiest ends of civilization. 

It is futile to attempt to describe Lincoln. When all is 
said — when all the portraits have been drawn, all the 
poems written, all the eulogies spoken — we cannot but 
feel unsatisfied. We feel that above all, and beyond all, 
there was a wonderful personality, a God-given person- 
ality, whom it is impossible to explain, to analyze, to por- 
tray altogether, as it is impossible to explain altogether 
the joy and the inspiration the human heart derives from 
the radiance, the glory of the sun. "His going forth is 
from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends 
of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." 

liut our gatherings in Lincoln's honor, and our efforts 
to portray and praise him, are rather to the end that we 
might kindle our own spirits at the flame of his enthu- 
siasm, that we might possess ourselves in some measure of 
his high qualities, that we might consecrate our own lives 
anew to the great and noble work to which he dedicated 
his. 

Oh, that this assemblage might experience such conse- 
cration ! As we think again of Lincoln's devotion to free- 
dom — of his heroic endeavor "to keep the jewel of liberty 
within the family of freedom" — as we think of his devo- 
tion to the cause of justice and humanity, of his combina- 
tion of strength and tenderness, of his love for the op- 
pressed, of his all-controlling loyally to democracy and 
its institutions, let us try to draw inspiration from his 
memory and to turn his life into an ever-present example. 



14 



A Soutkern Soldier's View of Lincoln 

Judge W. 0. Harris 

On April 15, 1865, I was riding with a companion on 
a muddy road in Amherst county, Virginia. I was a very 
young soldier, my companion much my senior in age and 
military rank. We were fugitives from Lee's Army, and 
were just emerging from the mountains, debating whether 
we should turn our horses' heads eastward, towards our 
homes, or westward, towards the Army of Kirby Smith, 
across the Mississippi, then the last faint hope of the 
Confederacy. We had just learned of the surrender of the 
army, and the consequent collapse of the Confederacy 
East of the Mississipj)i. We were both sunk in despair. 
I myself was, in addition, plunged into the deepest grief 
by the news just received of the death of a brother, to 
whom I was tenderly attached, on the field of battle at 
Sailor's Creek, on April 7th, the last stand of the Army of 
Northern Virginia. As I remember that ride and that 
day, it seemed to me that the very sun was blotted out of 
the heavens. While we were discussing our future course 
and what would be the probable fate of those we left be- 
hind us, whether there was to be the long-dreaded servile 
war, what was to be the treatment of the soldiers lately in 
rebellion — while these sad thoughts were revolving in our 
minds, we met a man who told us that Abe Lincoln had 
been assassinated the night before. As I remember, the 
impression then produced, it seemed to arouse us a little 
while from the contemplation of our own sorrows and 
those of the country. We received the news with in- 
credulity. Perhaps one said it was too good to be true. 
This, I confess, was the impression on my own mind. Lin- 
coln's death seemed to me like a gleam of sunshine on a 
winter's day. I had no thought but of gratified revenge. 

15 



AikI why shiujid it not have been so at that time? Lin- 
coln \v;is known Id ns as the leader of the abolition party, 
a }»arty whirh s(>u<ijht to destroy the institntion of slavery, 
which was of tlie very web and woof of Southern society. 
In that institution was inves-ted a thousand inilli(ms of 
dollars of property ;ind dial ]»ro])erty, witli one stroke of 
his pen, he had recently swept away. He was the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Armies and Navies which had 
burned our cities and laid waste our farms and homes. 

So far as we knew his personal traits, they accentuated 
the Southern feelinp: of hostility towards him. He was 
called the ''rail splitter," and manual labor was looked 
upon by slave owners as servile. It was inconceivable to 
us that a rail splitter should be chief of the governing 
class. He was also known to us as a joker, and in those 
tragic days that was by no means a recommendation. He 
was called a Nero, who fiddled wliile Rome was burning. 
Certainly it is not an over-statement to say that down in 
Dixie in 'G5 Lincoln was by no means a popular character. 

But with the years which have passed since then, the 
attitude of the South towards the cause for which Lincoln 
died has slowl}' but completely changed. The servile war, 
so dreaded for so man^- generations as a consequence of 
emancipation, did not come to pass. The consequent dis- 
arrangement of our industrial system soon passed away. 
The negro has made a better laborer as a freeman than he 
was as a slave. The South has recovered from the devasta- 
tion of the war and the effect of the confiscation of this 
property-, and is now vastly richer than it ever was under 
the slave regime. The paroles of her sohliers were sacredly 
respected. There were practically no indictments and no 
punishments for treason. The rich and prosperous South 
now views slavery from a standpoint entirely different from 
that of '(55. The peculiar institution may not have been a 
crime, but it was worse — it was a blun<ler. 

With this change of sentimeiit towards the cause of 
wliicii Lincoln w;is ilie representative, tliere has been a 

16 



corresponding change toward the man. His manual labor, 
his humble origin, his rise to the Chief Magistracy of the 
Republic, his transcendent success in his great office, re- 
flect honor upon him and upon the race from which he 
sprang. His humor is looked upon, as it always should 
have been, as the offspring of kindliness and gentleness 
and a catholic understanding of the subjects with which 
it dealt. All the world now admires his eloquence, which 
was of that higher sort, the eloquence of deeds rather than 
of words. His words also possess a lofty beauty and sim- 
plicity comparable to those of the old Hebrew prophets 
whose effigies look down upon us from the windows of this 
church. 

Surely, as he lay upon his bed of death in Washington, 
this man, as he looked back over his life, might have said 
with Paul the Apostle: "I have fought a good fight; I 
have finished my course ; I have kept the faith ; henceforth, 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." 

And thus the people of the South find themselves in the 
position in which Count Tolstoi describes himself as being 
after his conversion to Christianity. He says: "I was 
like a man journeying along a path who turns back. Those 
things which were formerly upon my right hand are now 
upon my left. Those things which were formerly upon 
my left hand are now upon my right." 

And so it is that the Southern people, and all the peo- 
ple, have met today in countless thousands, in sacred 
places like this, to do honor to the memory of Lincoln, the 
Restorer of the Republic, and in their imaginations he is 
in the world of spirits the companion and the equal of the 
august shade of AYashingtou, the Founder. 



17 



A Nortkern Soldier s Reminiscence 
of Lincoln 



Colonel Andrew Cownn, Cowinander of the Artillery Brigade of 
the Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac 



The reference made by Judge Harris to the battle of 
Sailor's Creek and the loss of a brother in that battle, has 
filled me with emotion. I directed the guns of the Federal 
forces against the Confederates at Sailor's Creek. At that 
battle the last gun of the artillery brigade of the Sixth 
Corps, wliicli I commanded, was fired. The force opposed 
to us was that of E well's Corps of Gen. Lee's army. They 
were surrounded by Custer's cavalry and the Sixth Corps 
of infantry and artillery ; and that night, just as darkness 
came on, I saw about eleven thousand soldiers, wearing 
the gray, who had surrendered to our superior forces. 

I have known Judge Harris for many years. There is 
no man in Louisville whom I more deeply respect. I may 
say that I entertain for him a feeling of warm affection. 
I knew something of his service in the Confederate Army 
— a mere boy, taking part in one of the most remarkable 
charges that has ever been known, but I have heard to- 
night, for the first time, that his brother had been killed 
in that battle at Sailor's Creek. Do you wonder that my 
voice trembles and my eyes are wet ! 

A distinguished citizen of this country, residing 
abroad, was asked by a foreign prince : ''Sir, wliat are the 
chief products of your State?" He answered: "Sire, the 
chief products of Maine are men." 

Kentucky, famous evei'v where under tlie sun for l)eau- 
tiful, gracious, (lueeuly women, has also bred men. Their 
sires blazed the forest trail and made the wilderness road; 
they i);ul<lle(l llieir canoes and steered their boats down 

18 



the tawny waters of the Ohio from its source to its mouth ; 
God showed them their land of Canaan and they wenr 
down and took it from the heathen. In this beautiful land 
of forest and stream, of hill and dale, of the blue grass 
and the bear grass, they and their descendants made the 
"Old Kentucky Home." Statesmen, jurists, scholars, 
preachers, hunters, soldiers, farmers, merchants — their 
names and deeds are woven into the history of the State 
and of the Nation. 

When the war between the states divided North and 
South into armed camps, Jefferson Davis, a Kentuckian, 
born and reared in affluence, already become famous in 
the South, commanded the Southern Confederacy; and 
Abraham Lincoln, born on Kentucky soil, in a lowly cabin, 
self-made and self-educated, the untried choice of an un- 
tried political party, held the Ship of State true to her 
course, through four years of bloody war, bringing her 
into the haven of peace at last with the old flag flying, 
bloody and torn, but with not a star missing from its azure 
field. 

I well remember the nomination of Abraham Lincoln 
by the Republican party, in the spring of 1860, and I had 
knowledge of the chagrin and sorrow it brought to the 
friends of my distinguished townsman. Governor William 
H. Seward. That presidential campaign was probably 
the most exciting which has ever been known. I marched 
in the torchlight procession of the Little Giants, in red 
capes, and with the Rail Splitters, in black, and brought 
home to my patient mother the odor and stains of whale 
oil from the dripping lamps. I also banged the bell in the 
parades of Bell and Everett, for we boys only saw the fun; 
the tragedy was revealed to us later. 

My regiment, which was among the first to march up 
Pennsylvania avenue, was camped on Kalorama Heights, 
now a beautiful part of our National Cai)itol, but then a 
distant, sun-baked farm. We were known as the Seward 
Regiment, and to our camp came President Lincoln, one 

19 



blazing hot day in the month of June, 18G1. I ran to the 
Colonel's quarters to feast my eyes on a President. There 
was Abraham Lincoln, surnmnded by nearly a thousand 
men of our regiment, and as I gazed on him my heart sank, 
for he was very homely and, to my notion, he seemed un- 
couth and without dignity. He was shaking hands, right 
and left, while the sweat streamed down his strong, homely 
face. On his head was a "plug" hat, weather beaten and 
faded, well tilted above his brow. He wore an old, faded 
linen duster coat, such as all travelers by rail or coach 
wore in those days, and it seemed to make his long, thin 
figure appear more elongated, for he towered above all the 
men about him. While I watched and gradually pressed 
closer to where he stood, the linen coat became saturated 
from his neck down to his waist and the outline of his 
suspenders became plainly visible. The President wore no 
vest. I was but a boy; my young eyes could not see 
through that homely husk "the whitest soul a Nation 
knew." I turned away without shaking his hand. 

A month later Bull Run was fought,^ a victory for the 
South, a defeat for the North, but it silenced opponents of 
the war in both sections. The school boys who had enlisted 
for a three months' frolic, began to see that their school 
days were past; the tragedy of the war was unfolding for 
them. Nearly a year later McClellan's Army had pushed 
its way up the peninsula from Fortress Monroe, until we 
could see the church spires in the city of Richmond — the 
goal we were striving to win. The army was planted in 
the Chickahominy swamps; the treacherous river splitting 
it in twain; when General Lee took the offensive. After 
two days' terrific figliting, ending with the defeat of 
Porter's Corps, McClellan decided to change the base of 
his army from the Pamunkey river, at White House, to 
the James, at Harrison's Landing. Then followed battles 
by day and marching by night, until the Army of the Po- 
tomac turned to give battle again, at Malvern Hill, the 
seventh in succession. Here, the advantage of position 

20 



was ours, and our great train of artillery was at last to 
have its day. The "charge of the Light Brigade" at Balak- 
lava was gallant and bloody and famous we know, but 
compared to repeated charges which I witnessed that day, 
when Magruder's Confederate infantry charged across the 
fields almost to the foot of the height where our guns were 
planted and poured forth their iron hail, the charge of the 
"gallant Six Hundred" was as a summer breeze to the 
fierce tropical hurricane. Victory was then with the Army 
of the Potomac, and that night both armies were exhausted. 
There, McClellan's army had the right to remain, but at 
midnight, in rain and thunder and darkness, we again took 
up the weary tramp. 

Coming to Harrison's Landing, there was no way 
to rest our weary bodies but to lie down in a sea of mud, 
churned by the wheels of thousands of wagons which had 
preceded the troops. The Army of the Potomac was not 
alone exhausted — it was largely a demoralized army, for 
the only time in its history, as I know well. We quickly 
recovered our strength and spirits and had constructed a 
line of rifle pits and redoubts, which made our new posi- 
tion secure and safe, when President Lincoln came from 
Washington to see for himself whether certain disturbing 
rumors concerning us were true. 

A review of the army was ordered by General McClel- 
lan, and now I was to see President Lincoln for the second 
time. The army was paraded for review, standing in its 
rifle pits and redoubts, while the reviewing officers rode 
out in front of the line of intrenchments. I think this had 
never been seen before, nor was it ever repeated in the 
Army of the Potomac. I stood on the parapet of the re- 
doubt occupied by the guns of the First New York Battery, 
which I commanded, so that I was able to see the reviewing 
party riding from the left, long before the commanding 
officer was abreast of us. This is what I saw: General 
McClellan, a superb horseman, rode at the left of Presi- 
dent Lincoln, who was mounted on a big, high-spirited bay 

21 



liiti'se. Tiicy were fnllowcd by Mcricllaii's l»rilliant staff, 
with forcigu i)rince.s and dukes, and military attaches from 
all European countries, and then a regiment of Lancers, 
each man carrying a hmce with a red pennant waving 
from its point. It was a brilliant spectacle. The Presi- 
dent held the reins in his left hand, without pressing on 
the horse's mouth, like an accomplished rider, and he sat 
his horse with ease, like a boy who had learned to ride 
bareback. He was dressed in black broadcloth, like a 
preacher, and in his right hand was a shining, new silk 
hat, which he waved as we cheered him, and his face was 
smiling and kind as he looked toward us. The man rode 
with kingly grace, and I would then have given my 
shoulder straps for the privilege of grasping his hand. 

I saw President Lincoln under fire, watching the battle 
between a division of the Sixth Corps and part of Early's 
army, on the outskirts of Washington. This incident has 
been treated with some doubt, but I witnessed it, as I shall 
now relate: 

General Early's army was sent by General Lee, in the 
early summer of 1864, to raid the Shenandoah Valley, 
drive out the Federal forces and push them back upon 
Baltimore and. Washington. He Avas confronted, after 
crossing the Potomac, by a force under General Lew Wal- 
lace, made up of odds and. ends gathercMl in from diti'ereut 
outposts. The third division of the Sixth Corps (to which 
corps I belonged from its organization to the close of the 
war), under General Ricketts, wa<^ shippetl from City Point 
to Baltimore and mov(xl out by rail to re-enforce Wallace 
at Monocacy Junction, in Maryland. So firm was the resist- 
ance put up by Ricketts, that Early was held in check for 
forty-eiglit hours, which gave the second division of the 
same corps time to reach Washington, just as Early's 
aniiy liad anived before its undefended forts. The steam- 
er carrying my battery and horses was the first to arrive 
after the infantry. I was met with orders to march to 
Fort Stevens without sparing my horses. 

22 



When I arrived abreast of the fort, our infantry was 
already' engaged with the enemy in the valley below us, 
and I had orders to halt and wait developments. I then 
saw General Wright, our corps commander, standing on 
the j)arapet of Fort Stevens, to my left, w^atching the fight- 
ing that was going on, and at his side I recognized Presi- 
dent Lincoln. Numbers of rifle balls from the enemy 
struck in the dust of the road where Ave were waiting, and 
doubtless as many or more fell where the President stood 
with General Wright, yet he did not move. I was told af- 
terwards that General Wright had begged the President 
not to expose himself, but he paid no heed to his advice. 

The Potomac river, closed by ice, had held my com- 
mand at Washington, when we marched in from the 
Shenandoah Valley camiDaign, which gave me the oppor- 
tunity to shake hands with the President in the White 
House (a little more than a month before his death), on the 
eve of embarking my brigade of light artillery for City 
Point, which we had left the summer before to come to 
the relief of the capital, then threatened by General 
Early's Confederate Army. The battles of Winchester and 
Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek had been fought. Early's 
army had been destroyed and Grant's grasp on Petersburg 
was tightening. We were now to take part in the final 
actions of the great Civil War. 

After the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
that army which had but one comparable to it for splendid 
loyalty to duty and undaunted courage — the Army of the 
Potomac — (now become the victor through superior force 
and unlimited resources), our corps marched from Appo- 
mattox to Burkesville Junction, Va., where we received 
the startling and shocking news of President Lincoln's as- 
sassination. As guests at my headquarters were as many 
surrendered Confederate officers as we had room for. They 
came to us as our guests the morning after the surrender, 
and when we were halted at Burkesville Junction, as we 
expected to continue our march through Petersburg, Va., 

23 



near their liomcs, they remained and were with us 
when the news of the assassination of President Lin- 
coln came. Their sorrow, I believe, was as genuine as our 
own. That he died at the zenith of his career, I have never 
doubted. I stood today in the little log cabin wherein he 
was born, feeling that surely God raised up this wonder- 
ful man for the saving of the Nation and the emancipa- 
tion of a race. Our God, in whom we trust, will still use 
the people of this great Nation for His omnipotent pur- 
poses, and He can raise up the humblest to do His will. 

"He hatli sounded forth His trumpet 
Which hath never known retreat. 

He is searching out the hearts of men 
Before His judgment seat. 

O, be swift our souls to answer Him, 
Be jubilant our feet, 

Our God is marching on." 



24 



Lincoln 

FEBRUARY 12, 1809-1909 
Madison Cawein 

I. 

Yea, this is he, whose name is SYnonvm 
Of all that's noble, though but lowly born; 
Who took command upon a stormy morn 
When few had hope. Although uncouth of limb, 
Homely of face and gaunt, but never grim. 
Beautiful he was with that which none may scorn — 
With love of God and man and things forlorn, 
And freedom mighty as the soul in him. 
Large at the helm of State he leans and looms 
With the grave, kindly look of those who die 
Doing their duty. Staunch, unswervingly 
Onward he steers beneath portentous glooms, 
And overw'helming thunders of the sky, 
Till, safe in port, he sees a people free. 

II. 

Safe from the storm ; the harbor-lights of Peace 

Before his eyes; the burden of dark fears 

Cast from him like a cloak; and in his ears 

The heart-beat music of a great release, 

Captain and pilot, back upon the seas, 

Whose wrath he'd weathered, back he looks with tears. 

Seeing no shadow of the Death that nears, 

Stealthy and sure, with sudden agonies. 

So let him stand, brother to every man, 

Ready for toil or battle ; he who held 

A Nation's destinies within his hand; 

Type of our greatness ; first American, 

By whom the hearts of all men are compelled, 

And with whose name Freedom unites our land. 

25 



III. 

He needs no jn-aise of iis, who wrought so well, 
Who has the Master's praise ; who at his post 
Stood to the last. Yet now, from coast to coast. 
Let memory of him peal like some great bell. 
Of him as woodsman, workman, let us tell I 
Of him as lawyer, statesman, without boast! 
And for what qualities we love him most, 
xVnd recollections that no time can quell. 
He needs no praise of us, yet let us praise, 
Albeit his simple soul we may offend. 
That liked not praise, being most diffident; 
Still let us praise him, praise him in such ways 
As his were, and in words, that shall transcend 
Marble, and outlast any monument. 



26 



Abraham Lincoln — the Prophet of 
Democracy 

Professor Albion W. Small, The University of Chicago 

It is surely not presumption, but duty, for a stranger, 
coming under these circumstances, to declare himself be- 
fore he can be entitled to your tolerant hearing. I was 
cradled in the most partisan of the New England States 
at the time of the bitterest tension between the North and 
the South. My earliest recollections are of the marching 
away of the choicest young men of the city, as I afterward 
understood, to fight to the death against the noblest sons 
of the South. All the prejudices of that time and place 
were the stuff of my boyhood education. Since I have 
reached man's estate I have repeatedly visited Eichmond, 
and have always made a pilgrimage to that neighborhood 
of Eichmond College, and I have stood with uncovered 
head genuinely respectful before the eloquent statute of 
Eobert E. Lee, and I have devoutly thanked God that I 
am part of a people that produced such as he. 

I belong to the generation of sons of those who fought 
against each other in that fraternal strife, who naturally 
and not perfunctorily Avalk softly from memorial to 
memorial of the Blue and the Gray at Gettysburg, and 
through the mists that shroud the memory of valor North 
and South, learn the beginnings of one of the profoundest 
lessons of human life. 

Men who follow the fiery pillar of human reason may 
wander far from each other, and far astray from the 
straight path of truth ; but if those same men have at the 
same time the courage to follow the cloudy pillar of con- 
science, in due time the two guides will coalesce and lead 
those erring men into a better promised land than their 
imaginations could foresee. 

27 



I Jim IK) stranger to the Southland. Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee are the only Southern states in which I have not 
often made public addresses and received private hospi- 
tality. I do not feel out of place among you. My only em- 
barrassment is the consciousness that I can never give 
half that I receive from the enjoyment of your society. 
May I have the privilege of saluting these noble veterans 
of the Blue and the Gray, and of testifying that from their 
exchange of sentiments I have received a new impression, 
which I hope will be indelible, of the chivalry of Southern 
men? 

As a citizen of the State of Lincoln's residence during 
his manhood, I cannot exaggerate my sense of the privi- 
lege of sharing in the celebration of his anniversary with 
citizens of his native State. Every civilization that has 
progressed has capitalized its pattern man. Let us follow 
popular usage and call these pattern men "great" men; 
Confucius, Gautama, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Mahomet, have 
lived their lives and then have passed into the immortality 
of memory. They have been put on deposit in the imagi- 
nation of society. They have drawn compound interest. 
They have accumulated. They have endow^ed and empow- 
ered nations and states and culture areas and epochs. For 
better or for worse, these men have worked more mightily 
in the immortality of memory than in their lives. 

When we say civilizations have progressed by capital- 
izing their great men, we do not thereby commit ourselves 
to the great man interpretation of history. This is only 
one part of the explanation. There are other parts. The 
great man factor is not the whole story. It is, however, a 
factor w^hich we may not neglect. 

What is a great man? A great man is a man who 
amasses in himself unusual amounts of qualities which 
his fellows value, or which subsc(iuent generations learn 
to approve. The great man is not sulllcieut unto himself. 
Emerson said, "No man can be heroic except in an heroic 
world," and it is a part of the truth. If he could be, he 

28 



could not have credit for it. A Comanche tribe gave its 
honor medals to its brave who took the most scalps. The 
tribe of Carnegie gives its medals to bread winners and 
life savers. If the Barbary pirates had discovered a Cap- 
tain Seelby among them, they would have thrown him over- 
board. No going down with the ship for them. They 
wanted to breed the kind of men who would knock the pas- 
sengers on the head, and scuttle the ship, and make off 
with all the loot they could land. There was a great man 
in Athens once, whom the Athenians could not see. All 
they could see about him was a corrupter of youth, and the 
hemlock poison was good enough for him until generations 
long after discovered something in him worthy of the 
respect of men. Dante, during his life time, was cold- 
shouldered from Italian city to city, that afterwards bat- 
tled for the privilege of burying him. To most of Europe 
during his life time Luther was merely a roistering rene- 
gade from the priesthood, and we have the whole case 
summed up in "Tom'' Reed's cynical aphorism : "A states- 
man is a successful politician who is dead.'' If by some 
miracle Lincoln had been born among Tartars, they would 
have wondered what that sort of a freak of soft hearted- 
ness could be worth, and they would probably have told 
him off to do woman's work. They could have had no 
other use for such a monstrosity. 

A great man is not an orchid. He is an oak. And he 
must have the sustaining social soil into which to send his 
roots. The great man requires the elements of greatness 
in his fellows in order to his greatness. We must, there- 
fore, ask : What is there in this country of ours which gave 
Lincoln a chance to be great? 

Possibly you will discover in my answer a faint reflec- 
tion of Carlylean mysticism. If so, I must abide your 
judgment. I venture the proposition that in the natural 
history of nations America must be classified as a requi- 
sition for Democracy. 



29 



It is not a very difficult feat of the imagination to pro- 
ject ourselves as far into the future as we are from Majjcna 
Chartii in the past, and eliminating those details which 
confuse our judgment today, to look back and to say of the 
landing of those groups at Jamestown and Plymouth : 
There is a decisive proclamation in the heraldry of history 
that henceforth the essentially human shall come to its 
own. With this Nation was born a new Messianic pur- 
pose. It was a requisition that man as man should be at 
lil)erty to express himself and to develop himself. It was a 
demand that men as they are, not as puppets of an arbi- 
trary control or ritual or pageantry of life, and no matter 
what may happen to jealous and obstructive preposses- 
sions and conventionalities and institutions, men as men 
shall be at liberty to explore and to bring to light and set 
in action the unfathomed mysteries of their powers. This 
is what I mean when I say that our Nation is a requisition 
for Democracy. Is it wonderful that, our Nation being 
such as that, Lincoln gravitated into the position of our 
popular great man? 

Democracy, the icoi% had been the magician's wand, 
the conjurer's spell, the hypnotist's suggestion, the agita- 
tor's slogan, the CA'nic's epithet, the sophist's fallacy, the 
quack's specific, the theorist's shifty hypothesis; but it 
has been coming to be more and more the wise man's in- 
terrogation point. Meanwhile, Democracy the fact, such 
as we have had, has been such an unstable equilibrium of 
conditions that it has constantly made hari kari of the 
definitions. Yet all the time there has been on the horizon 
the American's thought of an unrealized and undiscovered 
something, a far-off divine event when this word and this 
fact should be completely realized, a something so splendid 
that it would sanctify any name, and Lincoln has been 
coming to be more and more identified with that develop- 
ing, becoming something that will be worthy to fill the 
name Democracy. 



30 



We have had other great men. Washington and Jeffer- 
son were great men, great citizens, great patriots; in many 
respects, as hinted in the remarks already made this eve- 
ning, much more eminent in certain details than Lincoln 
could ever, by his most extravagant eulogist, be proved to 
be. Yet, all in all, Lincoln has somehow appealed to our 
American judgment as the incarnate Democrat. With 
Lincoln, Democracy was not a word, it was not a theory, 
it was not a program — it was a spirit of life. What, then, 
were the qualities of that spirit of life which made Lincoln 
the incarnate Democrat? 

As has already been hinted, it would be impossible and 
preposterous to attempt an analysis of that personality in 
such a way as to comprehend all the reasons for its force. 
I ask you to accept a schedule of the salient points in Lin- 
coln's personality which have appealed to me from my 
childhood, as I have studied, first as a boy in school, and 
then as a student of history, the monumental features of 
his democratic personality. 

In the first place, I would say that Lincoln was a great 
Democrat because of his fellow feeling with all sorts and 
conditions of men. 

An Episcopal bishop of one of the Southern states said 
to me not long ago, in a private conversation : "The differ- 
ence betw^een the Northern man and the Southern man on 
the race question is just this: The Northern man loves 
'the negro,' but he has no use for an individual black 
man. The Southern man can love an individual black 
man, but has no use for 'the negro.' " Whether this is the 
correct summing up of the case with reference to the race 
question or not, you can judge better than I. It is a sum- 
ming up of a fatal fallibility in our qualifications as dem- 
ocrats. It is easy for us to love humanity in large gener- 
alizations ; it is hard for us to take interest in an unlov- 
able fellow who meets us in his time of need. One of 
the most eminent college presidents in the United States 
said to me casually, in a railway train : "The reason why 

31 



socialism cannot come is not a logical reason, it is nut a 
psTchological reason, it is not an economic reason. It is 
an aestlietic reason. Just as soon as we are able, we don't 
want to mix any more with our fellow men. We want to 
be away from them. We want to keep the rabble awa}- 
from us.'- Whether that is to be the finish of socialism or 
not, I shall not attempt to judge, but my friend put his 
finger on a familiar note of human nature. We feel for our 
fellow men chiefly in large generalizations and in the ab- 
stract. Most of us draw the line most of the time, when 
brought face to face with the unattractive individual. 

Whenever Lincoln found a genuine person, man, wom- 
an, or child, who was not covered up with some ungenuine 
veneer or splash or pretension of something that he was 
not; whenever he found a real human being, in that human 
being he recognized a fellow child of God. 

I was just ten years old when the report came to us of 
the assassination of President Lincoln. The rumor reached 
our house just before daybreak. I dressed myself as quick- 
ly as possible and ran down town to see if more news could 
be had. I saw, coming on horseback, perhaps the most 
prominent citizen of the town. He was the president of 
the largest bank, a man whom I had often seen. As I re- 
call him now he resembled, not merely in his social position 
but also in his personal appearance, Marshall Field, of 
Chicago. Under ordinary circumstances, I, a ten-year-old 
boy, would no more have accosted him than a ten-year-old 
boy in Chicago would have ventured to start a conversa- 
tion with Marshall Field. But, under the circumstances, 
my instincts were reversed. I ran to meet him, with the 
eager question : "Mr. Stickney, have a'ou heard tlie news?" 
Yes; he had heard the news. He dismounted and, there, 
on the footing of equality established by the leveling loss 
of that great Democrat, holding his horse's bridle with one 
liaiid, he conversed with the casual boy about the reason 
fnr I lie Nation's grief. It has nhvays seemed to me that 
the incident was not only an unconscious tribute to the 

32 



character of Lincoln, but it was a symbol of the benedic- 
tion of that spirit of equality which Lincoln shed over our 
whole society, 

I would sa3', second, that Lincoln. was a great Demo- 
crat because of his candid 'belief that life is good. There 
had been many periods of pessimism before Lincoln's time. 
He had not entered into that end-of-the-century pessimism 
which expressed itself in the world-weary question, ''Is life 
worth the living?" Lincoln frankly aud candidly accepted 
life as it came, believing that it is opportunity, believing 
that something better is coming, believing that this world 
by man's living candidly will sometime be made into a 
beneficent humnn society. You will surely, in your 
thoughts, ask if I have forgotten Lincoln's hours of gloom, 
of depression, of discouragement, almost of melancholia. 
I remember all this; but what man in modern times had 
more cause for gloom and discouragement and almost de- 
spair? Did that make Lincoln a pessimist? It would be as 
logical to say that India rubber is not resilient because it 
gives to the first impact. Lincoln's very upspring from 
gloom and despair was proof as strong as Holy Writ that 
the under-current of his life was not pessimism, but the 
philosophy of optimistic hope. 

Lincoln was the great Democrat, third, because of his 
deep veneration for ju^iivc. The most dramatic scene in 
some resp/octs that I saw was in the late seventies, in Music 
Hall, in Boston, at that time the largest hall in the city. 
The mind of the country was intently occupied with the 
so-called Eastern question, the relations of the Balkan 
States. TJev. Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, was accredited witli 
being the ])rofoundest student of that question in our coun- 
try, and lie was invited by Boston citizens to deliver a 
series of three lectures. At these lectures, each of which 
occupied two hours, the hall was filled with the finest au- 
dience that Boston and vicinity could furnish. On the 
platform were from one hundred to two hundred of the 
leading men, known at home and many of them abroad: 

33 



.Iniiics Kiisscll Lowell, Dr. (JliNcr WCinlcll Ilnlnics, Presi- 
dent Eliot, jind iiicii of lli:il lyjic. Al one jmini in his dis- 
course Dr. Storrs, who \v;is a })attern ])iil])it orator of the 
most (liuiiitied type, in his most measured manner uttered 
I his siiiule sentence, tlie only recollection I have carried 
away fi-oiii those lectures: "I'm, nolhinii is settled in this 
woi-l(l until it is settled ri*;litly !"' And, instantly, as 
tliou,^h moved by one electric current, those impassive, 
cold, unresponsive Boston intellectuals were upon their 
feet, applaud inii and cheerinii', as thttuiili it were a new rev- 
elation. The dramatic motive in the demonstration was 
that, deep in our inner consciousness, is the belief that 
there is such a tliinj? as justice in the affairs of men, and 
tlionuh it tarry, and thoniiih it lag, and though it hide, 
some day, sometime, somewhere, it will show its face, it 
will show its power, it will be mighty, and it will prevail. 
If 1, a younger man and an alien, ma^' dare to express a 
judgment, it seems to me that, more than any other single 
factor, this may account for the change in the estimate of 
Lincoln in the South — the fact that, in spite of the misin- 
terpretations so natural at the time, he has exhibited him- 
self to posterity as a man standing, as it were, between the 
ui)per and the nether mill stone of contlicting interests, 
saying, from his heart of hearts, daily and hourly to Al- 
mighty (lod: "Show me what justice is and where it is, 
and by Thy grace, so far as in me is, it shall be done.'' 
This was Lincoln, and in this veneration for justice, this 
determination to try to do the right, though he be ground 
to i>owder, was his t itie to be called the Supreme American 
Democrat. 

I would say Lincoln was the incarnate Democrat, 
(■(Ml rill, Ixciuisi h< loved mid r<r< r<d liis oirn f/ovcrnnient. 
Ah, bill our sophisticated age says, as my little nephew 
said to his grandmother, when she was re]u*oving him for 
telling something that was not true, and was reminding 
him of the T<*n Commandments: "Oh, well, grandma, the 
Ten ('ommamlmenls are out (»f fashion." We say: "Oh, 



34 



respect for governniont is all ont of fashion." It is archaic, 
it is passe, especially in our country. A German lawyer 
said to me the other day : "There is this difference between 
the attitude of Germans and Americans toward govern- 
ment. In Germany tlie government is not popular, but it 
is respected; in America the government is not resjiected, 
but it is popular.'' 

The first lesson in democratic citizenship may be 
learned in the character and career of Abraham Lincoln, 
namely : Government at its worst is an enormous human 
achievement. The best government is fallible. The best 
government makes mistakes. The best popular government 
that has ever been invented is subject to corruption, but 
government such as men have been able to devise is the 
sheet, anchor of human progress. The good Democrat, the 
Democrat that can help Democracy to develop, is the Dem- 
ocrat who is able, as Lincoln was, to look upon his govern- 
ment, with all its faults, as that instrument and founda- 
tion with which it is necessary to work in order to improve 
even that government itself, and therewith all the rest of 
human life. 

Lincoln was a great Democrat, fifth, because he trusted 
in the common sense of the people. Lincoln had none of 
the superstition that the people never make a mistake. He 
never believed in th(^ catchy proverb : "The voice of the 
people is the voice of God," in the superficial sense that 
it is right, fair, and safe always to follow the popular 
whim. But this, I believe, was what Lincoln believed : If 
he could get beyond the interests of the clique immediately 
surrounding him, if he could brush away the formal con- 
clusions of the people in power whether rightly or wrong- 
ly; if he could get at the under-current of the disinter- 
ested mind and heart of the plain man, there, he felt, that 
he was getting into the deep ocean tides which convey 
along toward the goal of a righteous voyage. Lincoln was 
not willing that the classes, whether high or low, should 
decide. Lincoln wanted all the interests concerned to 

35 



lime a cliaiicc, to lia\(' ilicir say Wtv what it was worth. Tie 
seems to have learned Iiy iiisiiiici I he deep lesson which 
democracies are just now working oui hy cluiiisy experi- 
iiu'Titinir. The only safety for a l)einitera<'y is the principle 
liial if anything is rij^iit to d(», it is v'\<xhi to do it in the 
<ipen, where everybody interested can know what it means 
and can have a chance to say his say, in shaping the course 
of action. /'iihljcili/ }si ilw nrrcsisdri/ disiiiifrrtfinf of 
Democracy. 

And, finally, Lincoln was a great Democrat hccduse 
he loyallij tievvpied a moral hiir of work. Lincoln had none 
of the vulgar idea that the world owed him a living. He 
knew that all generations of men had worked hitherto, and 
that in woiking out the plan of human society, each gener- 
ation, as it shall come upon the stage of life, must take up 
its share and bear its burden. 

A few weeks ago I heard l*resident Eliot, of Harvard, 
tell this incident. He said: "My Harvard class inaugu- 
rated the ])lan of saving our graduation ])liotographs and 
at the fortieth anniversary binding them in books o]>i)osite 
photographs taken at that distance from graduation." He 
said: "I had just received my book. It was lying on my 
libi'ary table, when I received a call from a Frenchman, 
who had never been in this country before. He came on 
some business connected with libraries. I was dressing 
for an appointment and he had to wait. When I came 
down we transacted the business very (piickly, and then 
my caller said to me, 'I wish you would explain this book.' 
After I had done so, he said : 'Do you know, I have looked 
these pictures through, and tJiis is the only one whose 
younger picture I like better than the olderl'" And, 
I'l-esident lOIiot said: "That man whose yonnger picture 
was more :iltrac(i\(> than the oldei- was the only man in 
I he chiss wh(» had gone wrong. He was then under indict- 
iiK'nt foi- misa|»i)lication of trust funds. And the visitor, 
allci- talking the matter (iver a few minutes longer, took 
his leav«>, with the testimony: 'I think, Mr. Eliot, that 

36 



book is the most optimistic luiiiian document I ever saw.' " 
And President Eliot added : "I think he drew the correct 
conclusion.'- 

Work is the most salutary molder and ennobler of 
men. ^Vork is, all in all, the surest reliance we have in 
this world as a balm of grief, as a cure of vice, as the elixir 
of life. 

I am not among those who imagine that the race prob- 
lem can be settled by wireless telegraphy from the North, 
but I do not believe you will contradict me when I say that 
all the other forces put together will fail to solve the race 
problem, until the race that Lincoln emancipated is rad- 
ically evangelized with Lincoln's gospel of work. 

Everything considered, there is no more heartening 
hero than Lincoln in the whole roster of the world's great. 
He did magnificent things with humility and he made the 
homely heroic. In Lincoln, Democracy did not mean par- 
tisan, it did not mean demagogue, it did not mean doc- 
trinaire. It meant — and I say it without fulsomeness on 
the one side or theological vagary on the other — I remem- 
ber, too, that I am in a Jewish temple, and this is no new 
experience with me, either; for during the last fifteen 
years I have at least once annually taken Dr. Hirsch's 
place at his Sunday service in Sinai Temple, so I feel at 
home in a Jewish congregation, and I would not, by word 
or thought, violate the courtesy of the place — I do not 
know whether what I was about to say is altogether sanc- 
tioned now by Jews or Christians. I believe it will be 
endor.sed by the sane after-thought of both Jew^s and 
Christians. I started to say that, in its time and place 
and degree, Lincoln's Democracy was the same fellowship 
with the lot and the tasks and the hopes and the heritage 
of the plain man which gave its real meaning to that royal 
title of the Master Democrat of the Ages — the Son of Man. 
Lincoln's Democracy was unfaltering belief in the under- 
lying purpose of Sovereign God to open the right of way 
for the eternally human in man to march on whithersoever 

37 



its diviiK! (k'stiny iiuiy lead. ^Vll('tllel' we see it rloarly or 
not, this anniversary, celebrated from one end of America 
to the other, is a National feast (»f purificati(»n. It is an 
iil»lift in*:; of the host of democratic ideals as warning, re- 
proof, ami instrnction in rij^hteousness of civic life. Bnt 
no substitntional oblation can accomjdish hnman atone- 
iiiciit. Men, in the last account, arc uidy what they pur- 
posc and endeavor and achieve. If we were simply holdimj 
up for admiration the memory of Lincoln, and that were 
all, we should be entering a voluntary plea in moral bank- 
ruptcy. We honor a ,i;reat man only as we re-enact our 
allegiance to that which made him great. 

Americans jire careless enough. Americans are undem- 
ocratic enough. Americans sacrifice enough at the altar 
of gross and unworthy aims; but underneath, after all, in 
onr better moments, inconsistently perhaps, and intermit- 
tently and half-heartedly, we are still in search of the 
Holy Grail of Democratic realization. When the true 
Democrat comes, the Democrat who W'ill be the standard 
citizen to make the finished Democracy, that Democrat 
will not be the man in the saddle, he will not be the man 
with the championship belt, he will not be the man who 
makes the ail-American, he will not be the man who manip- 
ulates Wall Street, he will not be the man who "swings 
votes" — although I believe a sublimated fiomcthiny of each 
(»f these will be in the standard Democrat. The standard 
Democrat will be, first and foremost, right at the core. He 
will be a man wdio.se only selfishness is a splendid self re- 
spect; a man wlio.se self respect is the aljthabet of his 
Golden Rule of respect fi>r his felh»wiiiaH; a man whose 
creed is human fellowshij); whose pride is human .service; 
who.se ambition is the unlimited progress of human kind! 

T thank you for admitting me into your fellowship in 
this atlcuipt to get inspiration from the story of Lincoln's 
life. 



38 

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